


I Walk Out To Meet My Fate

by mercurialMalcontent



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Abortion, Body Horror, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Pregnancy, Trans Fenris, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5060908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurialMalcontent/pseuds/mercurialMalcontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe I'm cursed," he announces to the silent bottles, and laughs. It's a sound more despairing than bitter. Oh, he is cursed all right, a curse that he suspects has turned into an even worse one--</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Fenris finds he fled Hawke's mansion with more than just regrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Walk Out To Meet My Fate

It's been a month since Fenris had fled Hawke's side when a mysterious and intractable nausea takes ahold of him. Fenris pays it no mind, at first. He's scarcely had any appetite since that night, anyway, and it only seems like a fitting progression of his carefully hidden misery that he should find no comfort in food, either.

He chokes down what he can, when he can, for he's long since learned the lesson that one eats when one has food available, against the times when one has nothing. It's a struggle that leaves him weary each time, a weariness only increased by how exhausting keeping in practice is. 

Fenris tells himself he's lived through worse. He's managed through weeks of starvation rations after Hadriana, in a fit of pique over some imagined slight, convinced Danarius to punish him. He'll persevere through this.

(He imagines how delighted Hadriana would be to see him with enough food, but be too sick at the sight of it to eat it. Then he imagines how pathetically she died, and feels better.)

He doesn't truly realize how bad the nausea has gotten until he finally ventures out to the Hanged Man for a round of drinks. The wave of odor that hits him when he walks through the door nearly makes him vomit then and there. He huddles in the shadows by the door until manages to swallow his bile, then makes his way to the table where Isabela and Varric are already drinking. 

"Hey, Broody!" Varric raises his mug in greeting. "Glad to see you're finally out of your mancave."

"It is not a cave," Fenris says, scowling as he sits carefully, trying not to look too obviously like he's being careful.

Isabela snickered. "It's a figure of speech."

"I know."

"Well aren't you just a barrel of laughs tonight. Corff!" Isabela waves at the barkeep. "Draw up another for the elf, here!" Fenris opens his mouth to protest, but Isabela winks at him. "On my tab."

"I'm surprised he allows you to put anything on a tab after the last bar fight you started," Fenris says.

"Water under the bridge," Isabela says with a wave of her hand. "It was ages ago, anyway."

Fenris frowns at her. "It was last month."

"Details! ... Also, Varric bribed the guard whose nose I broke."

Varric snorts. "You're going to owe me for a long time, Rivaini."

"Better you than Aveline." Isabela leans aside for the barmaid to set Fenris's mug down in front of him. "Drink up! You look like you need it."

"Yeah, elf. You look even broodier than usual."

Fenris's heart skips a beat. "I..." He stares into the mug of completely unappetizing ale and swallows his protest. They've likely already gotten wind that things between him and Hawke are no longer as they were. "Perhaps." 

"See?" Isabela nudges him until he lifts the mug. "And you've been hidden away for so long you missed the hilarious scrape we got into last week--"

"Scrape?" Varric laughs. "You mean, 'unmitigated disaster'."

"It wasn't that bad! Anyway..."

Fenris only half listens to Isabela talk as he takes a cautious sip. As he feared, it's beyond vile, and it's all he can do not to choke.

He nurses the ale for as long as he can stand it, making the occasional conversational noise to keep Isabela and Varric talking. Thankfully, they pretend not to notice he's neither drinking nor conversing, but by the time he hears Hawke's voice at the doorway, he's had more than enough. He bids them a swift goodnight and slips out the moment Hawke is occupied at the bar.

The the contrast of the cooler and marginally less noisome air of the outdoors is enough to flip Fenris's stomach again. He barely makes it to a shadowy corner before he's loudly and messily sick. He retches even when he has nothing left to bring up, and by the time his stomach quiets, he's shaking.

This is no condition to try to make it across Kirkwall in alone, he thinks miserably, but somehow he manages.

Once back to the mansion, Fenris rinses his mouth, then dumps an entire bucket of icy water over his head. It helps steady him a little and beats back some of the wretched nausea enough for him to think. Perhaps he was simply... having an emotional reaction to the Hanged Man. Or perhaps the place had finally offended his sensibilities too much to be borne. He chuckles at the idea, and decides to make it up to his suddenly delicate tastes with the finest bottle of brandy he can find in Danarius's cellar.

Fenris discovers one on a high shelf he can barely reach by standing on his toes - an elegant bottle with rounded sides and a hand-illustrated label pasted to the front. The illustration looks like it's from one of the few Antivan varieties Danarius had favored, and the date on it puts it as aged twenty years.

He uncorks it and takes a hearty swig, only to immediately choke and spit it out. It's vile, even more vile than the swill at the Hanged Man, in large part because it almost, almost tastes like it ought to before it goes horribly, stomach churningly wrong. He looks at the bottle's label again. Perhaps the date is actually from the last age, and the bottle is so old it was forgotten up here by the previous owner of the mansion? Shame he can't read it to know for sure!

With a shout, Fenris hurls the bottle against the far wall. It explodes into a shower of glass, and the brandy drips into a fast-spreading puddle. He stares at it as he pants for breath against an emotion he doesn't dare name. It's only when the smell makes his stomach threaten to empty itself for the second time that night that he ascends the stairs again.

Fenris tries a different bottle the next morning, with similar results - the alcohol turns his stomach to even taste it. He tries another, and another, sampling each successive bottle with a growing sense of panic. It all makes his stomach churn and heave.

"Maybe I'm cursed," he announces to the silent bottles, and laughs. It's a sound more despairing than bitter. Oh, he is cursed all right, a curse that he suspects has turned into an even worse one--

He shoves that thought as far down as it will go and grabs the bottle that turned his stomach the least before he runs upstairs. He drinks it all within the hour, his hope that the liquor will drown his ugly suspicion all that keeps it down.

\--

When Hawke calls for him, Fenris goes. He needs money, he tells himself. He needs to be moving and busy. He needs to see Hawke's face again, as much as it pains him. He looks away whenever it seems their eyes might meet, but he doesn't fail to notice Hawke's wistful expression.

No, Fenris tells himself. It is done.

He stalks along the coastal road behind Hawke, steadfastly ignoring Varric's worried glances and Anders's hostile looks. Surely the abomination knew the path was clear for him, now. Wasn't that what he wanted? But the look on the mage's face suggests he either doesn't know, or tried and was rebuked.

Fenris feels like the idea of Hawke rejecting Anders should make him feel better, but it doesn't.

When they reach the besieged guardsmen, Fenris throws himself headlong into battle. It's a mistake. His sword is heavy in his hands and his feet are leaden. His swings go wide far more often than they should and he takes blows he should have dodged. A sneering bandit nearly knocks his blade out of his hands, and it's only years-trained reflexes that allow him to turn the fumble into a pommel strike that breaks the bandit's jaw. 

After they deliver what's left of the bandits to the guardsmen, Fenris finds he emerged from the battle with only bruises and a slice to one arm that Anders heals easily. Hawke hovers nearby, concern written plainly on his face. Fenris looks away, and earns a scowl from Anders.

As they leave, Fenris hangs back, ostensibly to cover their rear. To his dismay, the abomination hangs back as well, falling into step beside Fenris. "What were you doing back there?" Anders hisses.

Fenris glares at Anders from behind his hair. "Fighting."

"Not trying to commit suicide by bandit, then?" Anders tries to peer around and see Fenris's face unobscured. "Are you really still moping?"

The mage knows, then. Fenris clenches his jaw and speeds his step, which Anders matches. 

"You know, there are easier ways to get yourself killed than dragging us all along with you. Which is almost what you did in that fight, by the way."

"I know," Fenris growls. "Would you like me to prostrate myself before you in repentance?"

"I'd like for you to pull yourself together," Anders snaps. "You don't see me endangering everyone because I'm sad about my romantic life."

And Hawke had rejected Anders, in turn. Fenris's guts churn. He wishes he didn't know, that Anders hadn't told him, hadn't used it as ammunition against him. "No, you merely endanger everyone by your very existence," Fenris says, and quickens his pace to a trot.

Anders matches his pace. "At least I don't do it in the middle of a battle!"

Frustration and anger bubble up in Fenris's chest. "You say that as if you had perfect control over your demon." Fenris clenches his hands into fists. "What was the name of that mage girl you almost killed?"

Anders snarls and pushes in front of him, glowing blue cracks appearing across his skin. "You savage excuse for an elf--"

"ENOUGH! Both of you!" Fenris and Anders both go still as Hawke stalks back toward them. "What in Andraste's name are you two doing?"

Anders's glow falters and sinks back into his skin as he meets Hawke's eyes. Hawke turns his hard stare onto Fenris and Fenris realizes, belatedly, that his lyrium is glowing and his hands have already ghosted. "I..."

"Your pet--" Anders's words die as Hawke scowls at him. "We were arguing."

"That much was abundantly clear. I'm sure every bandit along the road to Kirkwall knows as well!" Hawke pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut. "I don't want to know what it was about. No, Anders," he says as Anders opens his mouth again, "I really, really don't. Just... don't. Please."

Hawke walks away to where Varric waits for him. For a brief, terrible second, Anders looks like he's going to cry, but then he shoots Fenris a poisonous look and dashes up to join Hawke, leaving Fenris to slink along behind.

\--

Back at the estate, Fenris smashes the few liquor bottles he had saved to to sell to the potion maker. He screams as he hurls them at the wall, as if he were hurling them at Anders's face, at the bandit who'd cut him, at himself.

He stares at the scattered shards as he gasps for breath. What is _wrong_ with him? The last time he'd lost it so badly he'd killed the woman who'd tormented and abused him for years. While he loathed Anders, it wasn't... like _that_.

The look Hawke had given him had said that he thought it was exactly like that. What must he think of him now?

Fenris sinks to his knees and, to his horror, begins to weep.

\--

The decrepit mansion is both Fenris's cocoon and his cage for the next week. He refuses to inflict himself on the world, or for others to inflict themselves on him. He rages, he weeps, he drinks himself into a stupor every night despite his twisting guts.

He trains, forcing himself into exercises he had thought he'd long since mastered. Something had clearly gone wrong for him to have been so clumsy, to have lost control like he had, to cry about it like he hadn't cried since--

The memory comes, fresh and jagged, like he'd never lost it in the first place. Since his first blood, two months later than his sister's, after he'd desperately hoped that that meant he would never, ever get it.

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. _Don't think about it_.

Every day, Fenris works himself into exhaustion until ravenous hunger overtakes the persistent nausea. He devours what he has on hand and is hungry for more. He tells himself that he's hungry because he's been unable to eat normally for so long. That's all it is.

The thoughts don't banish the persistent sensation of a weight low in his gut.

It doesn't mean anything, he tells himself. He hasn't gotten his blood in years - his harsh training and Danarius had seen to that, and even after his escape it hadn't come back. It was the one curse of his body he'd finally outrun.

_And that's why you drink yourself sick every night?_ A little voice in his head taunts him. It sounds like Danarius. _To stop thinking about how well you've outrun it?_

Fenris drowns that voice with another bottle.

\--

Even such a large mansion quickly becomes too confining for one such as Fenris, so he reluctantly steps into the greater world again. _Call it a test_ , he tells himself as he skulks alongside the walls in the early morning light. If he can handle the market, nothing's wrong.

Learning that the fruit seller is out of apples makes Fenris choke up. A line at the baker because some noble is complaining bitterly that the raisin buns aren’t perfectly symmetric makes rage bubble up under his out of proportion dismay. By the time he reaches the butcher, he's a mess of bafflement over his poorly concealed emotions. 

Once he's back at the mansion, he stuffs that uncalled for and unwanted surge of emotion down. It was... merely the result of not having stepped outside for a week. Noise grated on his nerves at the best of times, and the market had been bustling even that early in the morning. He'd get used to it, like he always did.

He's fine. He just really needs to hit something.

Hawke comes calling the next day, and his barely hidden concern is almost too much for Fenris to bear. It is also a relief - after Fenris had lost his temper at Anders, he hadn’t been sure if Hawke would trust him again. He vows, grimly, not to let his temper slip even an inch.

The fighting is easier than last time, as Fenris's limbs feel back to themselves, but the week of frantic training didn't compensate for how his center of balance is off. Ironically, that very thing saves him from a nasty blow from a maul-wielding thug - as Fenris turns to strike out, he stumbles backward, and right out of the path of the swing.

Once the guardsmen have come for the dispatched thugs, the team walks back to Lowtown. Isabella drops back to fall into step beside Fenris. "Nice moves back there," Isabela tells him. "You've been practicing your dancing." 

Fenris furrows his brow. "I--" It takes him a moment to remember the brief running joke he'd once made about what he did in all of the empty space of the mansion. "Perhaps," forcing the amusement he should feel into his voice.

Isabela perks up. "Ooh, really? Do you cartwheel down the stairs? Slide down the banisters?" She leans in close and nudges him with an elbow. "Gyrate your hips?"

That surprises a genuine laugh out of Fenris. He dips his head. "No, actually."

"Aww. And here I was hoping that someday you'd show me your dance routine." Isabela nudges him again and, with a wink, saunters away.

Fenris's smile fades as he watches after her. If he was going to 'show his dance routine' to anyone, maybe it should have been her. Then he wouldn't... there wouldn't be...

He catches himself pressing a hand to his belly. He snatches it away and storms off after the rest of the team, in a fouler mood than ever.

\--

Denial only gets Fenris so far. ( _It isn't denial,_ he tries to tell himself, but yes, it is.) He's learned to block out many unpleasant sensations and physical realities, but this heaviness, this presence that lurks within him is too new and terrifying to be pushed down so far it won't ever surface again.

He becomes increasingly reckless when he works with Hawke, hoping that an errant blow will strike him in just the right place and the heaviness will be dealt with. He spends his time alone fighting the realization that gnaws at the edges of his mind, refusing to name it for what it is.

It isn't until Fenris realizes that his jerkin barely fastens around his hips anymore that the realization hits him too hard for him to deny. "No," he mutters, tugging at it as if that will make it bigger. "No, no, no, _no_ \--"

He pulls the jerkin off and flings it away before looking down at his gut in horror. His mind still babbles denial - he trains hard, fights hard, he hasn't the least bit of spare meat on him - even as sinks to his knees, weighed down by what he knows is growing inside him.

Fenris curls up in the furthest corner of the room, as if he can get away from himself. He stares at nothing as he tries to make some sort of plan, or to think at all, but the only thing his mind will produce is a howl. 

He doesn’t register time passing as he huddles there with his face pressed against his knees. It's mid-morning when he collapses on the grimy floor; when his mind gives up its blind panic out of sheer exhaustion, the last rays of sunlight barely illuminate the dim room. He rubs the grit out of his eyes and tries again to consider a plan.

Fenris's first thought is to tell Hawke, but that thought is accompanied by throat-closing panic. He gasps against it and discards that idea. He can't tell Hawke, not now, not ever. He'd taken a risk in revealing to Hawke that his body was not as it seemed, but to reveal that he'd been so careless so to not take precautions against one of the unfortunate realities of that body was unbearable.

What if Hawke - earnestly and obliviously - asked asked him to carry it through? Fenris shudders.

An apothecary? No, he was likely too far along for an apothecary to do much good. He groans. If only he'd thought about the apothecary sooner! Maker, he was stupid. If he had any sense at all, he would have visited one before he'd thrown himself at Hawke, but now, here he was, in a predicament he couldn't tell anyone about.

And that was the thing, wasn't it. _He couldn't tell anyone_. If he could find a healer who would treat an elf fairly at all, he still couldn't trust that they wouldn't talk about the elven man who'd come to rid himself of a pregnancy. Then he'd quite possibly have far more than Danarius to worry about, even with the protection of his friends - assuming they'd stand with him at all once they knew.

"It's not like Tevinter," Fenris says to himself, his voice creaking like an old hinge. "They won't..." _They won't turn on me for this_. He trails off, unable to say it, so little does he believe it himself.

Fenris loses more time, coming to when it's full dark. With a groan of effort he uncurls himself from the floor and drags himself onto the bed. He's more leaden than ever, the weight of the presence within him gripping his entire body with its impossible gravity. 

He shouldn’t be able to feel the thing that has taken residence inside of him. He's seen what other slaves went through; all of them had been undernourished and overworked. Bleeding times were so few and far between that missing a handful was of no note, until their bellies grew larger. But feel it he does, something unwanted lurking in his gut, feeding off of him and leaving him sick and exhausted.

He puts his hands flat on his belly, imagining what it would be like to feel it move. Even the thought of the sensation makes his stomach turn over and he has to swallow back bile. There should never be something inside him, it never should have happened, he wasn't meant for this! His breath comes in harsh gasps as he pounds on his belly with his fists. If only he could beat the thing out of himself! He only succeeds in hitting a hipbone hard enough to make himself flinch from the sudden jolt of pain.

A groan escapes Fenris as he puts his hands over his face. A moment later, however, he pulls them back to stare at the lyrium etched into his skin. Could he... ghost his hands inside of his own body? He could simply reach in and squeeze... He clenches his hands into fists. It'd end this, once and for all. His lyrium begins to glow as the idea becomes more and more appealing. It'd be easy. No one would ever have to know. It'd be over. 

_Possibly permanently,_ a part of his mind whispers. 

_How difficult could it be?,_ he argues back as his hands become transparent.

_What do you know of anatomy?,_ his mind argues in return, angry and afraid. _How many things are within you that can go wrong? What if the pain is more than even you can take and you lose control?_

His hand hovers above his belly as an image flashes across his mind - the bed around his body soaked with his blood, his guts ripped free from the shock of unbearable agony. How long before anyone found him? How far decomposed would he be before Hawke risked his ire to check in on him? Would he have any idea what happened, and how far would he blame himself?

For a brief moment, Fenris thinks it might be worth the risk, before sense takes ahold of him once more. He jerks his hands away from himself and forces them to phase back into physicality. No. No. He hadn't come this far to lose himself like that. He was not going to lose himself to anyone or anything.

The question remained, however, of what he was going to do. Fenris put it off another night, as he has been putting it off, and the next day as well, despite flashes of blind panic when he lets his guard down. Now that the subject is at the forefront of his mind, however, he can’t keep it down for long, so that evening he gets himself roaringly drunk before he considers his options.

Fenris knows he only really has two to consider, but that doesn't stop him from going through every other one that seems even slightly plausible. He runs through lists of apothecaries even though he’s already dismissed them as useless to him. He considers healers he has heard of even though he has no idea if he can trust them to treat an elf with a secret. He considers Isabela, who may have resources in such matters that he doesn't. He considers Merrill.

Merrill is... Merrill is no healer, but she's competent, she's at least tried to be kind to him, and she might feel more... sympathetic to his predicament. She had been in training to be a Keeper for some time; surely she knew how to deal with troubles such as the one he now carried.

He imagines a knife against her wrist, her blood splashing onto him and through him, a hot sick power feeding on the thing inside him and growing, growing, growing--

A shameful whimper escapes Fenris as he curls in on himself against a fear he will never admit to. He makes himself breathe deeply and chases those images away. No. Merrill is not an option, never an option. He’s dimly aware that his mind is spinning tales out of shadows, but even trying to think of it leaves him in a panic. He can't risk it.

Unfortunately, that leaves him with only one option.

\--

Fenris resents each step that takes him further into Darktown and toward Anders's clinic. His thunderous glare drives the lurking thugs that much deeper into the shadows; if they suspect he'd cut them down without a second thought, they're correct. He is burning with anger.

Under it, his heart beats like the heart of a small, frightened thing about to be devoured. 

The lantern at the clinic is lit. Fenris stands to one side of the door, hesitating. Could he go through with this? Could he trust Anders enough to get the words out? Would Anders be worthy of that trust? 

Finally, Fenris shakes his head at himself in disgust. It's pointless to debate, as he has no other option. No amount of fear would change that. He moves decisively, giving the door three sharp raps before he pushes in.

The mage sits at a table halfway across the room. He's more disheveled than usual, his hair fallen almost completely free of its tie and his facial scruff well on its way to becoming a beard. He looks up sharply from the papers scattered across the table, one hand reaching for this staff. "What are you doing here?"

"I need your help," Fenris blurts before his throat can close around the words.

"You...?" Anders's eyes narrow, but his hand returns to the tabletop. "What kind of help could you possibly need from me that you couldn't get from Hawke?"

"Hawke is not a healer of any skill," Fenris retorts, keeping his voice tense and angry to mask the panic underneath. 

"And you trust me?" Anders snorts. "Don't you think I'll turn into a demon midway through and eat your face?"

Fenris clenches his fists so Anders won't see them shaking. "It's a risk I'll have to take."

"That was a joke."

"I _know._ " 

Anders sighs, turns away from the papers and toward Fenris. "So why are you here, anyway."

"I--" Fenris's throat closes on the words. He huffs and begins pacing the width of the room, well away from Anders, turned away so the mage can't see the fear and shame that must now be written all over his face. "It's--"

Anders watches him with baffled amusement. "What are you shy about? There's very little I haven't seen down here, you know." He smirks. "Is it a social disease?" 

"No," Fenris says with as much derision as he can manage, which almost makes it not come out stammered.

"Of course not," Anders says in clear disbelief. "Unless... it's something that can't be passed off as a social disease for much longer? Fenris, did you get some unlucky girl pregnant?"

Fenris stops, his entire body gone cold and leaden, his vision blurring around the edges. He clenches his fists even harder but that's not stopping the trembling now.

"Really?" Anders forces a laugh. "Hawke's bed had barely chilled before you--"

" _No!_ " Fenris whirls around to face Anders, who's mostly a blur now. "It's me! I'm--" He gestures at his belly as he bares his teeth in Anders's direction.

There's a moment of silence, then an uncomfortable shifting. "I don't know what they taught you in Tevinter," Anders says, his voice almost pitying, "but men can't get pregnant."

Fenris growls. "I'm not an idiot, mage! I know men can't get pregnant, but I-- _I am._ "

Anders stares at Fenris for a long moment before he runs his eyes up and down Fenris's body. "You mean..." The examination is judgmental, prying, Anders's brows furrowing as his eyes linger here and there. "Why would you pose as a man? It's not like--"

Fenris's markings flare, despite himself. "I am a man," he snarls as he balls his hands into fists, "and if you tell anyone about this I **will** kill you!"

Anders tenses, his eyes glowing with eerie blue light, and Fenris knows he's ruined his chance of ever being rid of this thing inside him safely. He takes a step back, ready to bolt back through the door and into Darktown, his markings flaring brighter and throwing strange shadows around the room.

Understanding crosses Anders's face, and the light fades from his eyes. "I misspoke," he murmurs, and looks away. Fenris eyes him warily, still ready to flee, but his markings die down. After a moment, Anders shakes his head and says, "I can help you... but you must stay here for the duration of the treatment."

"No."

"Yes!" Anders sighs and rakes his hair back from his face. "If something goes wrong, it'll go wrong too fast for you to get here from Hightown."

"And the chances of that are?"

"Not to be trifled with," Anders says sharply. "Relax. I'm not going to make you sleep on the floor."

_Like the beast I am?_ Fenris gives Anders a sour look. "Then let's get this over with."

'Getting it over with' was not, however, going to be a quick or simple process. Fenris is left to pace as Anders chooses herbs and strange liquids to make whatever treatment he has in mind. He doesn't seem to care or even notice Fenris's footsteps, probably the result of years' worth of anxious patients. Thank the Maker for small blessings, Fenris thinks. He couldn't sit still right now to wait for anything.

"Humor me for a moment," Anders says, looking up from where he's grinding something in a mortar. Fenris shoots him a wary look, then nods. "Why didn't Hawke or you take precautions?"

Fenris shoots him another look, this one poisonous. "Do you always ask your patients intrusive questions?"

"Yes," Anders says, and returns to his work. "Sometimes they don't know what precautions to take, or where to get what they need."

"And yet I suspect prurient curiosity in your case."

"Well. Maybe."

Fenris grunts irritably and comes to a stop, turning his back on Anders and folding his arms. It's none of the mage's business, but the tense silence is almost worse than his shame. After a moment, Anders makes an irritated sound, and the sound of the pestle against the mortar quickens. Fenris isn't sure what gets to him more - that Anders expected an answer, or that he so quickly became irritated when Fenris didn't spill his secrets immediately.

That, if anything, decides him. He glares up through the openings in the wall far, far above, where he can just catch a glimpse of the night sky. "I haven't had my-- blood-- since before I received the markings." He curses himself for choking on the word, but continues. "I had assumed that if the lyrium hadn't made me barren, one of Danarius's experiments on me had." He shakes his head at himself. "Foolish of me."

"But weren't you his bodyguard? Why would he risk..."

"Why indeed." It was a good question, and one Fenris had asked himself many times recently. Why would Danarius risk any possibility of Fenris having a pregnancy, when he was the one causing that risk in the first place? "Perhaps he wanted to have another use for me once he tired of my company."

In the long silence that follows, Fenris has a feeling he just let on more about what he was to Danarius than he'd ever meant for anyone to know. He grits his teeth and tightens his arms around himself. "Is your curiosity satisfied? Are you happy to know these things about me?"

"No," says Anders softly, and the sound of the pestle - stone against stone - starts again.

"Good," Fenris growls, and goes back to pacing.

\--

Nearly an hour later, Anders finishes his measuring and mixing and presents Fenris with three things - a potion, a suppository, and a lump of clean moss. The potion is straightforward enough - it tastes disgusting, as such things do, but Fenris has consumed worse. The suppository and moss, however...

"It needs to be inserted internally, as far as possible." Anders says, not looking at Fenris. "And followed by the moss, to hold it in."

Fenris stares at the little tray holding the things. The suppository is oblong, brown, and smells strongly of elfroot. It's also not particularly big, but that's not what's making him stare at it like a rabbit staring at a slavering dog. "I see."

Anders is still carefully not looking at him as he cleans up. "It's, ah, easiest to insert while lying on your back, with your knees up." Silence stretches. "... If you're unfamiliar with how to do so--"

"I am not," Fenris snaps. "I merely need a private space to do it in."

Anders breathes out with visible relief. "Right. Of course." He gestures toward the back. "There's a folding screen next to that cot."

Fenris takes the tray and stalks off. His every movement as he sets the tray down near the cot and unfolds the screen is sharp and angry, even though he knows at this point he isn't fooling either himself or Anders into thinking he's anything other than frightened.

He disrobes and sets his clothes aside, then lies down on the cot. It's clean but has a kind of scent that can never be wiped or washed away - the smell left by the countless people in fear and pain who have laid upon it. It's a smell that's as familiar to Fenris as his own heartbeat, and for a long, tense moment, he fights the urge to tumble off the cot and fling it into a wall.

Everything about this evokes memories so strongly that Fenris has to stop and calm himself after each step. As he brings up his legs he remembers Hawke sitting between them and kissing his knee; as he spreads his legs, he remembers Danarius pushing them apart and devouring him with his eyes. He tries not to think as he inserts the medicine and the moss, but memories of large, callused fingers still intrude. Those are the worst, because no matter who they belong to in the memory, the touch is gentle and welcome.

Fenris feels quite ill when he redresses in his leggings and shirt. He scrubs his hands at the washbasin like he's scrubbing the memories away, or perhaps his markings, but it only leaves his hands red and feeling raw. Anders doesn't look at him as he returns the tray, a slight nod the only indication that the mage noticed him at all.

After a while, Anders returns to the table he'd been sitting at when Fenris had burst in; Fenris continues to pace to keep himself from thinking about any of this, especially the weird, queasy feeling that's spreading through his belly. The mage glances up from his papers from time to time, but says nothing.

After some time, Anders pushes away from the table. "I'm going to try to sleep. You should rest." His brows furrow upward at Fenris's grunt. "Suit yourself. The cot isn't going anywhere, anyway. Wake me if you start to have cramps." He blows out the candle lantern on the table and goes to the cot that stands across the room from the one behind the screen.

Fenris paces, and paces, as if by doing so he could wear a rut through the floor and fall into the Void. He doesn't want to sleep, however, in this a strange place where memories still somehow ambush him at every turn. He paces until the weird queasiness turns into genuine nausea, and only then does he consider that perhaps he should lie down after all.

Anders does not shift as Fenris's footsteps approach the back of the room. He lies on his cot as if he were dropped there, and in only his long tunic, it's clear he's all angles and bones. For a moment, Fenris feels what may almost be pity, then shakes himself as he realizes he's staring. Pity is a waste of time, he reminds himself, and lies himself down on the cot behind the screen.

\--

Fenris awakes to the small, miserable sound of a child too sick to cry properly. He scrambles to his feet, looking frantically around in the faint light of dawn for a sister he can scarcely remember.

The low rasp of Anders's voice, still scratchy from sleep, brings Fenris back to the present. He sits back down on the cot as he listens to the voices and the child's whimpering. After some rustling and the faint crackle of magic, the child's whimpering quiets. A few murmured words of thanks later, there's the heavy sound of the door closing.

"Fenris! Are you still alive?"

Fenris sighs and rubs his eyes. "Yes, unfortunately for you." He rises, saying, "Unfortunately for me, I find myself in need of-- nnngh--!" 

He falls back onto the cot, clutching at his belly as his insides clench from behind his navel and down through. He gasps for breath, dazed, as Anders hurries over. "The cramps are that bad?" Anders scowls at Fenris's groan in response. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"Because I was asleep," snaps Fenris as he fights his way upright. The clenching of his insides has subsided, somewhat; it's easier to work through than his weeks-ago nausea had been. "Where is your privy?"

"You slept through--" Anders stops himself and shakes his head. "There's a chamberpot and washbasin through there," he says, gesturing at a nearby shadowy alcove. "Remove the suppository as well, and we can get started."

Anders leaves Fenris alone to do his business. The alcove is deeper than he thought, hiding him completely from the rest of the room, and lit by a lantern that must be magical, as it radiates a steady blue glow. It's something of a production to remove his leggings and get himself situated while waves of pain slam into him, but he manages. He's managed through worse, and the cramps recede somewhat once he's emptied his bladder.

Removing the moss, however, is another matter. It's unpleasant to reach for it, but that doesn't compare to it coming out - it makes a thick, wet noise as it slides free, and leaves him feeling hollow and open. He dry heaves, nearly toppling onto the floor before he can push the nausea back.

Fenris spends some time crouched on the floor and shaking. It's more than the pain, it's how very aware he is of what's going on inside him, even more aware than he was when he was close to reaching into his own guts to end it. _It's almost over,_ he tells himself. _Just endure a while longer, and it will be over, and you’ll be free._

Those thoughts help Fenris get to his feet and to the washbasin so he can clean himself. The basin is filled with cold, remarkably clean water, and the rags piled nearby are equally clean. Anders's patients were too poor to pay him, and Anders never asked... but that didn't mean they didn't have something to offer. It seemed gratitude over a life saved was worth quite a lot of washing and hauling of water.

Fenris frowns at the water and wonders what his gratitude is worth.

Once he's clean enough and has deposited the used rags in a nearby basket provided for the purpose, he struggles back into his leggings and leaves the alcove. He's feeling worse by the minute, and as he steps out, a cramp takes him that makes him double over.

Anders sees Fenris from where he's mixed up another potion and hurries over, bottle in hand. "Here." He hands it over and hovers as Fenris downs it in a few gulps. "It should dull the pain of the next part, somewhat."

"Oh good," Fenris rasps as he hands the bottle back. With difficulty, he manages to straighten, and notices with irritated amusement that Anders continues to hover like he wants to assist, but doesn't dare touch him. "Tell me what I need to do next."

"You're not going to like this."

"Have I liked any of this? _Tell me._ "

Anders's eyes slide away from Fenris's, as if something over Fenris's left shoulder is suddenly very interesting. "Remove your trousers and lie on the table over there." He gestures at a table on the side of the folding screen opposite the cot. "I will..." He purses his lips. "... Massage your abdomen, to break up the tissue."

The hollowness within Fenris fills with ice. "You cannot do that through my clothes?"

Anders flares his nostrils. "Not unless you fancy wounds from chafing."

Fenris clenches his jaw and wills his voice not to shake. "May I at least cover the rest of myself?"

"Of course you may," Anders snaps, meeting Fenris's eyes with a glare. "I don't fancy seeing _you_ naked."

Fenris snarls. "Yes, it's clearly bad enough that you have to touch the beast." Another cramp grips him and he gasps and doubles over again. "Let's get this over with."

Anders whirls around and storms off, hopefully to find those coverings. Fenris clenches his jaw again as he forces himself upright and forward to drag the folding screen around so that the table would not be visible from the door. It was bad enough that Anders was going to see him - touch him - in such a vulnerable state; Fenris couldn't bear the thought of some random stranger seeing him like that, too.

As Fenris removes his leggings yet again, Anders drops two yellowed pieces of linen over the screen. Fenris suspects the larger piece was once some comte's tablecloth, and the smaller, a discarded tea towel. He spreads the tablecloth across the table before climbing awkwardly upon it, where he rolls his shirt up to his ribcage and, after lying down, covers himself with the tea towel. 

Fenris feels uncomfortably like one of Danarius's vivisections, and the feeling is not helped when Anders appears, his face unreadable, and looks Fenris over for a long, uncomfortable moment, his eyebrows rising as he examines the lyrium markings that emerge from under Fenris's shirt and disappear under the towel. He clears his throat before Fenris can do more than scowl. "I'll be using magic to help the tissue detach cleanly." He waits for Fenris's grunt of acknowledgement before continuing. "And... it's likely this will hurt quite a lot, despite the potion." He looks almost apologetic as he presses a piece of leather into Fenris's hand. "Bite down on this if it becomes unbearable."

"Right," Fenris says as he clenches his hand around the leather.

Anders's thin hands hover above Fenris's belly as the mage closes his eyes in concentration. A blue glow radiates from them and onto Fenris, making his skin prickle and his markings sting. Fenris tenses at the sensation, and even more as Anders places his hands - cold, rough with work, wholly unwanted - upon him.

The mage's hands are gentle as he feels Fenris's belly, pressing and prodding here and there to map out Maker knows what. Fenris hates Anders a little more for being as careful with him as he would be with a crying girl. He knows he won't be able to forget this, just like he's never forgotten any intimate touch he's received since the lyrium was burned into his skin.

When Anders's magic flares and he presses down hard, the pain is a relief. It's nearly as bad as Anders had warned, and nearly enough for Fenris to need the leather to bite down upon, but infinitely more bearable than the mage's careful, exploratory touch was. This pain he can endure - no, not just endure, but welcome, for with it it brings relief, and freedom.

\--

The aftermath is unpleasant and bloody, with sickening cramps and far too many trips to the privy to change the rags and moss Fenris has to wear in his smallclothes for that day, but he does it as if it were the lightest and least troublesome of tasks. Even the sounds of the clinic beyond the folding screen, loud and distressing as they can be, do not shatter the peace he's found.

Anders leaves him alone to rest for the most part, only peering around the screen to deliver a potion or some bread and broth, or check in on him from time to time, as a good healer should. He doesn't try to make conversation and, more importantly, does not touch Fenris again. Even when he insists on checking on him late that night, he only hovers his hands above Fenris's belly as he does whatever magical thing he does.

Fenris awakes the next dawn still sore and cramping, but more than ready to be gone. He slips in and out of the privy before redressing. Putting his jerkin on is almost like coming home, although he frowns when he fastens it and it's still tight - but then, it was a bit much to expect he would be back to normal quite so soon. The relief had gotten to his head. He chuckles to himself as he steps out from around the screen. 

"I didn't take you for a morning person," Anders says blearily from where he sits at his paper-strewn table. His hair is loose and he's still in his tunic, and Fenris wonders if he slept at all last night.

"I'm merely eager to leave this place," Fenris retorts. He frowns at the mage, then glances away. "I..."

"Don't say it. This has been weird enough as it is." Anders rubs his eyes. "Just... don't mention it. To anybody. I won't tell if you won't." 

"That is as I prefer it." Fenris eyes Anders for a moment longer, then starts toward the door. "I'd best be going."

"Wait." Anders pushes himself wearily away from the table and to where he mixes his potions. "You'll need one more potion to ensure your wo-- your trouble clears out completely." He begins gathering reagents as he continues, "Drink half tonight and half tomorrow night, and so long as the cramping stops in the next few days after, you won't have to come here again."

Fenris blinks at him. "... Right." He'd assumed the mage would just have him go and be glad to see the back of him, but Anders truly was a good healer. No matter how much Fenris loathed the man, he'd treated Fenris well enough - and better than other healers would treat an elf.

He watches Anders grind the reagents for a moment, calculating how much the foot and reagents he'd consumed must have cost, and how much a Hightown healer would have charged him for their services. Anders, who knew Fenris had resources his usual patients did not, hadn't asked him for a thing.

As Anders busies himself with brewing the potion, Fenris searches through his belt pouches and counts out coin equal to what that hypothetical Hightown healer would charge. He places the stack of sovereigns on the paper Anders had been poring over and steps away before Anders looks up.

A few minutes later, Anders corks a bottle and holds it out. "Let's hope this works and we won't have to see one another so close up ever again, shall we?"

"I pray your skills work on more than hope," Fenris says as he takes the bottle. 

Anders makes a disgusted noise. "That was a _joke,_ Fenris."

"I know." Fenris turns away before Anders can notice the stack of coins on the table, or see the smirk that flits across his lips. He pockets the bottle as he leaves the clinic, his renewed feeling of freedom speeding his steps.


End file.
